Deagrarianisation is a global phenomenon with high potential for both carbon sequestration and biodiversity conservation. Work on this topic has focused on plant succession and associated plant diversity, but few studies have considered faunal communities, particularly in Africa. We used passive acoustic monitoring to record insectivorous bat communities within forest fragments and former fields under communal land tenure in t...

Biological invasions can have major social-ecological consequences for rural communities across the world. However, the dimensions (characteristics, infestation and socio-ecological impacts) of emerging invasive alien plants are often less known and urgent information is needed to guide policy and management. In light of this, this paper assesses the social-ecological impacts of Vernonanthura polyanthes, an emerging invasive a...

Tree cores are a highly valuable scientific resource. Annual growth ring data can, for example, improve our understanding of climate change impacts and effects of environmental pollution, allow for better annual estimations of tree growth patterns and carbon storage, and help quantify dynamics and changes in forest ecosystems. The value of coring trees for research has been weighted against concerns around the potential harm c...

Approaches, values, and perceptions in invasion science are highly dynamic, and like in other disciplines, views among different people can diverge. This has led to debate in the field specifically surrounding the core themes of values, management, impacts, and terminology. Considering these debates, we surveyed 698 scientists and practitioners globally to assess levels of polarization (opposing views) on core and contentious...

UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) are areas of outstanding universal value and conservation importance. They are, however, threatened by a variety of global change drivers, including biological invasions. We assessed the current status of biological invasions and their management in 241 natural and mixed WHS globally by reviewing documents collated by UNESCO and IUCN. We found that reports on the status of biological invasions...

Our ability to predict invasions has been hindered by the seemingly idiosyncratic context-dependency of individual invasions. However, we argue that robust and useful generalisations in invasion science can be made by considering “invasion syndromes” which we define as “a combination of pathways, alien species traits, and characteristics of the recipient ecosystem which collectively result in predictable dynamics and impacts,...